Tokyo Day 5- Ueno park

The previous post in this series is here..

After Senso-Ji temple, we took a cab that dropped us off at Ueno Park. We walked in expecting some Cherry Blossoms. There were none on the path. Then we (I) heard someone talking about a walk path to the left. No one was going there. So we turned right and down to the lake area and saw another temple from the outside and took photos.

By the time we climbed back up, it was cold and chilly. The sun had also set. So we walked back to the entrance. I was going through a temporary brain fade and thinking we should come back to see that road in day light. So the group tried to calm me down from my man-opause and said “okay okay.. we will try to make time and visit this place again during the day tomorrow”.

We also assumed that given it was late evening, we could go back by train. Our memories of doing this in Osaka were nice. Tokyo was different. We saw the first train and got spooked. We had to take the second one having come down to the station. So we crammed ourselves into the next one with the kids being in the middle.

Once out on the other side, we walked back to the Monday Apart hotel.

We made Chai, cooked up Poha, semiya upma and other instant food packets and sat together and ate it !

It was a meal that will stay with me for a long time. It is not like we have not had food together as families before at each others place. This was special. The rest of the families, especially the ladies who would otherwise not eat that much were finishing things off.. for us.. so we could buy stuff of equal weight at Uniqlo ..

that sacrifice is sincerely appreciated!

The first photo below was taken in a cramped elevator in the Akasukabashi train station when we were coming out..

A video highlight including the train after we got off it. It was two stops but we literally had to squeeze ourselves in. Office train traffic in Tokyo was something else!

We did go back to Ueno park again.. Will write about it later.. for now the blog will take a break as we are back to work days. Will pick this up later this week..

Imperial Palace in Tokyo - Day 5 of Japan trip

The previous post in this series is here....

We took an Uber to get to the Imperial palace. The driver told us that we were better off going from one of the less crowded gates. So we walked into the palace area. It was amazing to see such wide open spaces in the middle of the bustling city.

There were bamboo gardens, flower gardens and a lot of cherry blossoms that were just falling.

We had a great time walking through the gardens. The actual palace was closed to public but a replica was there for us to see. It started drizzling and we came out of a different gate to save time. A short wait later we were off to our next sightseeing stop. We were going to try our luck with the weather.

Here are the photos..

A video of the Imperial palace visit..

At this point Claritins were popped. We were happy to see Cherry blossoms again!

Then we waited for an Uber to take us to our next tourist stop. It was a good idea to get an extra day in Tokyo!

The Golden pavilion or Kinkaku-ji Temple in Kyoto

The previous post in this series is here..

After leaving Nara, we came back to Kyoto and I had three places to see in Kyoto mainly from a photographic interest. One was an ancient street which was supposed to be captured at golden hour, the other was the Golden pavilion and the third was downtown Kyotos main shopping street.

The cloud were everywhere and it was drizzling and there was going to be no golden hour. So historic preserved street wasn’t going to happen. We had to go back to the shopping area in the evening anyways.

so that left the Golden Pavilion or Kinkaku-ji temple. It is a gold covered Buddha temple in the middle of a lake on a hill.

We took two cabs and went straight from the station to the temple, stood in line and got tickets. Then it started pouring. There was a large crowd there to see the temple and every umbrella was dripping on to other peoples feet. There should be a minimum umbrella distance maintained and it was not to be. With wet shoes we were walking around the lake still trying to take pictures and joking around. It was a memorable experience although not a great one. As a group we generated fun. That is the best way to put it. Then again we could be in a gulag and still generate fun. We were just happy traveling together.

This temple is absolutely breathtaking. Even in that rain. Here are the photos.. from all sides of the lake that we were allowed to see!

We walked around the lake, took pictures and walked down the hill to a restaurant scouted by Jr. It was supposed to be a popular vegan place. Yet again, as her luck would have it, it was closed! So we found another place a block away which had vegetarian options in the menu. I ate a plain brown rice noodle (it was just unflavored sevai) while the rest of the group had soup, salad and noodles. We got an Uber XL and stopped at the shopping district. It was early evening already, but the group had at least had something to eat and we were done with sight seeing on a schedule.

A short video highlight of our Kinkaku-ji temple visit.

The next post is definitely a social study..